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Book Review of Slow River

Slow River
Slow River
Author: Nicola Griffith
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Hardcover
ophelia99 avatar reviewed on + 2527 more book reviews


This was an okay book set in the future. The story focuses around a young woman, Lore, who's been kidnapped. When her parents refuse to pay the ransom she ends up broken and alone in an alley. Eventually she is picked up by a woman named Spanner. Spanner helps her learn how to make a less than legal living off grid.

Eventually Lore decides to try to make a honest living and this leads her to somewhat accidentally uncovering a number of secrets from her past.

The story jumped around a lot between Lore's childhood, the near past, and the present. It was decently done and never got all that confusing. The writing style is beautifully done and descriptive.

Somehow the whole story just came off as feeling a bit pointless to me. I did enjoy the world-building but never found either the characters or the story all that engaging. I almost stopped reading this a few times because I just didn't really care much. I kept hoping that something amazing was going to happen to tie everything together but it never really did.

Overall this was okay but not great. It very much has that mid-90's somewhat ambiguous cyberpunk feel to it...if that's your thing you might enjoy this.